Fuel Oil & LP Gas Dealers NAICS 457210

Jun 23, 2025 - Recruiting Female Drivers

• Propane distributors looking to fill the driver shortage gap while potentially improving safety will want to consider an overlooked category: women drivers, LP Gas reports. Women are underrepresented in trucking in general, with a 2024 survey by the Women in Trucking Association finding that an average of 9.5% of all professional truck drivers who hold CDLs (commercial driver’s licenses) are women. Women tend to be very risk averse, decreasing their likelihood of being involved in a collision. Indeed, a study conducted by Auburn University Harbert College of Business from 2010 to 2022 found that male truck drivers were 13.2% more likely to have a major unsafe driving violation. Strategies for propane dealers to attract more women drivers include simply encouraging more women to apply, offering flexible schedules and protective equipment that fit women, and on-the-job opportunities for professional development and apprenticeship programs.
• Low-income households in need of assistance to heat their homes may feel the chill next winter after the Trump administration in April laid off the entire staff of the Low Income Heat and Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), Fuel Oil News reports. Administered largely by states, LIHEAP distributes more than $4 billion annually to 6.2 million low-income households nationwide to help with heating and cooling costs. The program also covers maintenance and repair to home furnaces. “They fired everybody,” the executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association Mark Wolfe told The New York Times. With no one left to administer the funds the program appears to be in limbo. Moreover, at the time of the firings, about $400 million in LIHEAP funding had yet to be sent to the states. In June, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill to reverse the staffing cuts.

• Sales of heat pumps saw continued growth at the end of 2024, outpacing sales of gas furnaces for home heating, The Wall Street Journal reported in January. While new heat pump shipments have been outpacing gas furnaces since 2022, heat pump sales may have gotten a boost recently due to fears that the fossil-fuel-friendly Trump administration could do away with tax breaks and other financial incentives meant to spur US consumers to electrify their homes. “Over 2024, there’s definitely a substantial increase in the sales of heat pumps relative to furnaces,” Russell Unger, a principal at RMI who works on building decarbonization, told WSJ. Unger says he’s hopeful the heat pump incentives will remain available in the coming years. Currently, homeowners can claim tax credits of up to $2,000 for electric heat pump installations, and additional state-administered rebates worth thousands more are slowly rolling out into the marketplace, according to WSJ.
• Employment by fuel oil dealers fell 1.8% in April compared to a year ago, while average wages at gasoline stations and fuel dealers rose 2.5% over the same period, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Sales and employment by fuel oil dealers are highly seasonal, peaking during the “winter heating season," (November through March) and bottoming out in the summer. Looking ahead, sales for the US fuel oil and LP gas dealers industry are forecast to grow at a 1.1% compounded annual rate from 2025 to 2029, slower than the growth of the overall economy, according to the Interindustry Economic Research Fund.